Tag Archives: development

Right now, I’m still recovering from a bad cough. Right now been avoiding the outdoors, yet outdoors call for me despite being cold. There have been bright sunny days and the normal dull skies for winter.

I’ve been sporadically shooting some photos last week but having coughing fits hasn’t help me or my confidence to get out of the house.

On the upside though, I’ve been kind of sitting at home reading a bit and watching photography tutorials. The only time I’ve gone up was to finally pick up some personal business cards. I didn’t realize how much 500 cards can be but who knows, I might use it to being more visibility to my 500px account which is now my portfolio. I didn’t feel comfortable enough to give my cell phone number out on a card. Perhaps someday when I feel comfortable to share my personal phone number (or I get a business number for cheap, which would be super great). For now I’ll keep some on hand and just spread then around when I can.

I’ve been on Steam for almost a decade (According to my badge, 8 years) and I’ve seen Steam change it’s marketing and this year I think they’re trying to wean their users towards what they want their platform to become.

At first when I started Steam, it was mainly AAA titles getting the holiday sales page. It was tough back then to look online for games other than what’s popular and hyped. With the advent of Greenlight, there has been bunch of submissions and approved games listed on the market. This is where the problem lies with the users and the consumers on Steam.

The indies don’t necessarily have a marketing team running round the clock to advertise their game since they want to produce the product than enhance their own image. Usually these small studios are running on a timeline and a budget unlike larger studios who can afford a bit of time wasted. This race to publish has granted us something unique in the industry at the moment, early access.

In my personal opinion, some of the developers seem smart on when to go fully public on their early releases while some have been just pushing hard to get the funding they wanted. While others are focused too into their product and they create a great product but not enough to generate awareness of it. So most games I found have either don’t reach expectation of the game while some just go under for not being well funded. This is what’s great about Steam. Steam can act as the marketing platform to sell the game on behalf the developers. And I think Steam sees this and it’s why a lot of early access titles are on sale for the holidays. It generates awareness for these games at an appropriate price while giving players the opportunity to be the kid in a candy store to buy a lot of games for a small cost.

Perhaps the lackluster feeling you are receiving is being you are not sure about these games and it feels you are not getting the sales you were expecting. I too felt the same way and it is indeed very difficult to buy a game when most of the catalogue is on sale. To that, I say we take the lessons we learned from Watch_Dogs; we take a risk regardless how much we spend and how popular the game, but it is indeed our risk to take.

Of course you must ask how does acting like a pseudo-schizophrenic helps you in a healthy sort of way. Well Mr./Mrs. Statement-as-a-question, I’ll tell you. When I was a kid (and maybe some of you too, the world is inherently crazy; my point of view), I use to have an imaginative mind. I still do, not just in a clean innocent manner anymore though. When troubles got me down, escaping to a fairy tale world was the only outlet and sometimes, things get a little out of hand. Out of hand in fact, the best way to enjoy fantasy is to be fantasy. Whether cop or cosmonaut, it would get out of hand one way or another. Now kids are just too spoiled over video games to really see the potential of their own creativity. Not saying it’s a good or bad thing, but I think it’s just one part of childhood everyone should have a little bit of through the best and worst.

Damn, got side-tracked. Where was I? Oh right! Talking to yourself. Here’s what I gather from the short article. By talking to yourself as a child, you develop confident and a method in approaching problems by viewing them retrospectively. Carrying it on to adulthood or even picking it up as an adult would benefit more than just self improvement. In the article, they give you the example of the dreaded job interview. Well, it helps to prepare by talking to yourself about the subjects the employer might ask about you. If not that, then you can always reassure yourself before the interview.

Not much of a talker, what about a hummer? (Mind out of the gutter, I meant the singing kind…) If you’re not, humming would also have the same benefits apparently as well as lower stress. I could go on an one about humming, but I think everyone does this either in public or at home. I don’t really need to give you a full anecdote about how music is great. Oh of course, I do prefer my MP3 over my own voice since my repertoire is not exactly over 2GB of storage, but it’s nice to listen to a tune that can calm the emotions and to think of other things. Then again for me, thinking of other things can be the easiest thing I can ever do.

Before I leave you all for the next entry, I would like to say to all those Christian readers…Merry Christmas! Also because of the holidays, don’t expect next week’s issue to be out until the end of the year. So pretty much, this is the second last one for this year. Probably may or may no do something special for the last one for 2011. Just stay subscribed/bookmarked to my blog for a little something-something. I might pop on middle of the week to send of something short for easy reading for you…maybe…happy holidays!